Alternate Title

TEDS-A, 2008

Summary

The Treatment Episode Data Set -- Admissions (TEDS-A) is a national census data system of annual admissions to substance abuse treatment facilities. TEDS-A provides annual data on the number and characteristics of persons admitted to public and private substance abuse treatment programs that receive public funding. The unit of analysis is a treatment admission. TEDS consists of data reported to state substance abuse agencies by the treatment programs, which in turn report it to SAMHSA.

A sister data system, called the Treatment Episode Data Set -- Discharges (TEDS-D), collects data on discharges from substance abuse treatment facilities. The first year of TEDS-A data is 1992, while the first year of TEDS-D is 2006.

TEDS variables that are required to be reported are called the "Minimum Data Set (MDS)", while those that are optional are called the "Supplemental Data Set (SuDS)".

Variables in the MDS include: information on service setting, number of prior treatments, primary source of referral, gender, race, ethnicity, education, employment status, substance(s) abused, route of administration, frequency of use, age at first use, and whether methadone was prescribed in treatment. Supplemental variables include: diagnosis codes, presence of psychiatric problems, living arrangements, source of income, health insurance, expected source of payment, pregnancy and veteran status, marital status, detailed not in labor force codes, detailed criminal justice referral codes, days waiting to enter treatment, and the number of arrests in the 30 days prior to admissions (starting in 2008).

Substances abused include alcohol, cocaine and crack, marijuana and hashish, heroin, nonprescription methadone, other opiates and synthetics, PCP, other hallucinogens, methamphetamine, other amphetamines, other stimulants, benzodiazepines, other non-benzodiazepine tranquilizers, barbiturates, other non-barbiturate sedatives or hypnotics, inhalants, over-the-counter medications, and other substances.

Created variables include total number of substances reported, intravenous drug use (IDU), and flags for any mention of specific substances.

Citation

United States Department of Health and Human Services. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Office of Applied Studies. Treatment Episode Data Set -- Admissions (TEDS-A), 2008. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2014-09-11. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR27241.v7

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

Core-Based Statistical Area (CBSA)

Restrictions

Users are reminded by the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that these data are to be used
solely for statistical analysis and reporting of aggregated
information, and not for the investigation of specific individuals or
organizations.

Time Period(s)

Date of Collection

Data Collection Notes

The 2008 public-use file was created using the most current data from October 2013 (the October 17, 2013, extract).

In 2012, changes were made to the full TEDS series. The changes consisted of the following:

The recoding scheme of the variable DENTLF (Detailed Not in Labor Force Category) was changed. The cases for "Inmate of Institution" have been separated from "Other" and are now a standalone category.

The recoding scheme of the variable DETCRIM (Detailed Criminal Justice Referral) was changed. The cases for "Prison" have been separated from "Probation/Parole" and are now a standalone category. The same was done for the cases for "Diversionary Program" which were previously combined with "Other". But the cases for "Other Recognized Legal Entity" previously combined with "State/Federal Court, Other Court" have now been combined with the "Other" category.

In 2011, a change was made to the full TEDS series. All records for which the age is missing are now excluded from the dataset.

To further protect respondent and provider privacy, all Behavioral Health Services Information System (BHSIS) unique identification numbers have been removed from the public-use data. Therefore, no linkages are possible between the TEDS and the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS) public-use files.

The categories and codes in this public-use file differ somewhat from those used by SAMHSA and those found in the TEDS Crosswalks and in other reports. This is a result of the recoding that was performed to protect client privacy in creating the public-use file.

In 2012, a new variable was added that reports the number of times, if any, that a client was arrested in the 30 days preceding his or her admission into treatment. The variable is not on files prior to 2008.

Several limitations to the data exist and should be noted:

The number and client mix of TEDS records depends, to some extent, on external factors, including the availability of public funds. In states with higher funding levels, a larger percentage of the substance-abusing population may be admitted to treatment, including the less severely impaired and the less economically disadvantaged.

The primary, secondary, and tertiary substances of abuse reported to TEDS are those substances that led to the treatment episode, and not necessarily a complete enumeration of all drugs used at the time of admission.

The way an admission is defined may vary from state to state such that the absolute number of admissions is not a valid measure for comparing states.

States continually review the quality of their data processing. As systematic errors are identified, revisions may be enacted in historical TEDS data files. While this process improves the dataset over time, reported historical statistics may change slightly from year to year.

States vary in the extent to which coercion plays a role in referral to treatment. This variation derives from criminal justice practices and differing concentrations of abuser subpopulations.

Public funding constraints may direct states to selectively target special populations, for example, pregnant women or adolescents.

TEDS consists of treatment admissions, and therefore may include multiple admissions for the same client. Thus, any statistics derived from the data will represent admissions, not clients. It is possible for clients to have multiple initial admissions within a state and even within providers that have multiple treatment sites within the state. TEDS provides a national snapshot of what is seen at admission to treatment, but is currently not designed to follow individual clients through a sequence of treatment episodes.

TEDS distinguishes between "transfer admissions" and "initial admissions." Transfer admissions include clients transferred for distinct services within an episode of treatment. Only initial admissions are included in the public-use file.

Some states have no Opioid Treatment Programs (OTPs) that provide medication-assisted therapy using methadone and/or buprenorphine.

The data are collected from the states by Synectics for Management Decisions, Incorporated, on behalf of SAMHSA.

In 2010, changes were made to the full TEDS series. The changes consisted of the following:

Clients 11 years old and younger are excluded from the dataset.

Puerto Rico now has its own category for Census Region and Division. Clients in Puerto Rico were formerly classified into the South Census Region and South Atlantic Census Division.

The state FIPS (STFIPS) variable is retained and a second state variable was dropped to reduce redundancy.

The variable RACE is no longer recoded. Codes for "Asian" (code 13) and "Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander" (code 23) are now retained. Previously these codes were combined into the single code "Asian or Pacific Islander" (code 3). Each state may report any of the three codes. Therefore, all three codes remain in the data, unchanged from the way they are collected by the states.

Time Method

Longitudinal

Universe

State laws require certain substance abuse treatment programs to report all of their admissions and discharges to the State. In all States, treatment programs receiving any public funds are required to provide the data on both publicly and privately funded clients. In some States, programs that do not receive public funds are required to provide data as well. On the other hand, there are some instances in which information is provided only for clients whose treatment is funded through public monies. TEDS collects this data from the States on all admissions and discharges aged 12 or older. TEDS-A presents only the admission data.

Data Source

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Original Release Date

2010-02-24

Version Date

2014-09-11

Version History

2010-02-24 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

2012-07-18 The data for this collection have been updated with a new data extract, current as of October 10, 2011. A new variable, ARRESTS, has been included in the dataset. The recodes for the variables DETNLF and DETCRIM have been revised to provide greater utility in using these variables in analysis. Also, in Appendix B of the codebook the recode table now shows the original percentages of each value for select variables.

2014-07-28 The data for this collection have been updated with a new data extract, current as of October 17, 2013

2014-01-21 The data for this collection have been updated with a new data extract, current as of October 15, 2012

2011-03-24 The data for this collection have been updated with a new data extract, current as of November 03, 2010. Cases where age was missing have been excluded from the dataset. Minor changes to some variable labels, value labels, and question text were made to better align the variables with the information presented in the TEDS Admissions manual.

2010-03-31 The variable SERVSET was renamed to SERVSETA to distinguish it from the service setting variable in the TEDS Discharge data.

Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

This study is provided by ICPSR. ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for a diverse and expanding social science research community.